Meet The New  Alumni Advancement Board Members

 (Photo Courtesy of Carie Lemack)

Carie Lemack is an entrepreneurial leader who grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts. She was inspired by her first grade teacher, Alice Shull, to watch Columbia’s first landing on her 6th birthday. From this inspirational experience, she went on to attend Space Camp, Academy I and Academy II, and was a counselor at Space Camp California during its inaugural year. Carie studied Symbolic Systems at Stanford University and furthered her education earning Masters Degrees in both Business Administration and Public Administration. She is the cofounder of Global Survivors Network, has produced an Academy Award award-nominated documentary film Killing in the Name, and collaborated with world leaders and activists to speak out against terrorism.  

Carie is currently a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, a Senior Fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, a member at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a lifelong member of Red Sox Nation.  She is thrilled to be joining the AAB and supporting all future space explorers, and hopes all campers have a chance to catch the “space bug”!

 (Photo Courtesy of NASA)

Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger was born and raised along the Front Range of Colorado. A scholar-athlete, she ran cross-country and track for          Whitman College, in Walla Walla, WA, while earning a degree in Geology, graduating with honors. After attending Whitman College, she received her teaching certification from Central Washington University. As an educator, she taught for five years at Hudson’s Bay High School in Vancouver, WA. In addition to teaching, she coached cross-country and Science Olympiad.

In June of 2004, Dottie joined NASA and the Astronaut Corps making her the first Space Camp alum to become an Astronaut! After several years of training, she was assigned to  the STS-131 crew, an International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission, and flew as Mission Specialist 2 (also known as the flight engineer). She also served as a robotic arm operator, the Intra-vehicular crew member (the inside coordinator of the spacewalks), and a transfer crew member (helping move six tons of hardware and equipment). The mission lasted fifteen days.

In June of 2014, Dottie retired from the Astronaut Corps and returned to the Pacific Northwest with her family. She is finishing her Masters Degree in geology at the University of Washington, and she continues to speak and promote Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) education.

Alumni Spotlight

 (Photo Courtesy of Michelle Christensen)

Dr. Michelle Christensen took an early interest in space and rockets, especially rocket             engines. When she was 5 years old, her father took her to Kennedy Space Center as a side trip to Disney World. “My parents did not expect me to be more excited about KSC than Disney World, but I thought the rockets were the coolest things I’d ever seen”, she said. Michelle later noticed that Space Camp was the grand prize on Nickelodeon’s Double Dare and knew she had to go. She spent years saving up her babysitting money and when she was in the 8^th grade, she had enough to go to Space Academy. She would return a few years later to attend Advanced Space Academy, and later as a counselor for more than 3 years.

As soon as she arrived at Camp, Michelle realized how many great opportunities Huntsville had in propulsion and decided to go to school at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). While at UAH, she worked in the Propulsion Research Center and was involved in         designing hardware and analyzing the injectors of the Space Shuttle Main Engine at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. She went on to study combustion at Penn State, earning a PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

Today, Michelle is a propulsion development engineer at Blue Origin. She is working on the BE-4, a 550,000 pound thrust engine that will power Blue’s orbital launch vehicle, and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. Her work on the BE-4 has included the design, analysis, and testing of components related to ignition and combustion in the engine’s preburner. She          described last November’s successful test flight of the New Shepard as the most exciting moment of her life. “It was truly amazing to see how many people with various skill sets contributed to the success of that flight and I was really proud to have been a member of that team.”

Do you know someone that is a Space Camp or Aviation Challenge Alumnus that’s doing inspiring things in a career of Science,                          Engineering, or Aviation? Please make suggestions for them to be profiled in our next issue at [email protected]

Alumni Spotlight

Dr. Andrea Hanson always knew she wanted to pursue a career in engineering. She grew up in Lake Park, MN and while in high school she won an award that came with a tour of the 3M facility in St. Paul, MN. The tour guide was a chemical engineer and demonstrated to Andrea how the first Post-it Note™ was created and she got to see its sticky adhesive through an electron microscope. She decided then to enroll in the Chemical Engineering program at the University of North Dakota (UND). While a        student at UND she took a course in Space Studies which led to her decision to work as a counselor at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. She spent her first season as an Advanced Space Academy counselor in the summer of 2000. That summer was spent learning, and then teaching campers, about orbital      mechanics, space science, rocketry, space shuttle and space station systems, and space physiology. The experience changed her educational and professional trajectory. Andrea said after working at Space Camp, “I fell in love with space, the engineering, the science, and the team work required for successful space missions. I was most interested in how the human body adapts so readily to the microgravity environment and experiences rapid bone and muscle losses even after a couple of weeks in space. It was then that I knew I wanted to spend my career helping to find solutions to these unique health challenges.” After completing her studies at UND, she continued her education at the University of Colorado where she earned a Master’s and Doctorate in Aerospace Engineering, focusing on Bioastronautics and Microgravity Sciences. Today Andrea works at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas where she manages the Exercise, Physiology, & Countermeasures (ExPC) Laboratory and serves as the ISS Exercise Countermeasures Specialist. This team combines their expertise on how the body adapts to microgravity with technology and advanced techniques to optimize human performance in space missions. Her work in the ExPC lab also focuses on a number of research projects focused on finding answers to the remaining identified health risks as we prepare to journey to Mars. In development of future medical devices and exercise hardware, Andrea is also involved with testing these systems in microgravity through parabolic flight aboard NASA’s Weightless Wonder, C-9 Aircraft. She is proud to be working towards preparing for travel beyond the ISS and on to Mars. Andrea continues to be involved with Space Camp, “Today, I am thrilled to be working with the USSRC Alumni Advancement Board (AAB) through the Space Camp Hall of Fame and as the future Co-Chair of the AAB. I credit Space Camp with providing me the inspiration, the initial knowledge base, and confidence to follow my dreams to work in the space industry. I am so impressed with the recent upgrades made to the training center floor, with Orion simulators and new Science on Orbit training facilities, and the vision the USSRC continues to lead as they inspire the next generations of Scientists, Engineers, Artists, Teachers, and Astronauts! I am so thankful to have an opportunity to give back to this amazing organization that set me on the most exciting career path to reach toward the stars.”

Space Camp Alumni Festival in Review

The first Space Camp Alumni Festival was a rousing success!  Sims were flown, astronauts were met, and over $15,000 was raised for Space Camp scholarships.  Take a look at all that took place as we lay the groundwork for next year’s festival!